Post Irene … I Hope

Ohmygod it was hell! Nine and a half hours without power. I had to write BY HAND! With a PENCIL! On PAPER!! And communicate with people with my VOICE!!!

We were practically a third world country there for a while.

Seriously: Hope everyone weathered the storm (or continues to weather it), wherever you are, or at least thinks/thought kind thoughts of us here on the East Coast.

The sum total of the damage at my house is a couple of large limbs down in the yard. I had a little bit of an adventure this morning when I went over to check on a friend at his plant nursery. I ended up holding down the end of a sheet-plastic greenhouse the wind was threatening to send off like a hot air balloon, while he frantically stapled and roped and weighted.

If you haven’t already seen this much-copied joke, here’s something from Facebook:

As Hurricane Irene prepares to batter the East Coast, federal disaster officials have warned that Internet outages could force people to interact with other people for the first time in years. Residents are bracing themselves for the horror of awkward silences and unwanted eye contact. FEMA has advised: “Be prepared. Write down possible topics to talk about in advance. Sports…the weather. Remember, a conversation is basically a series of Facebook updates strung together.

[Oh, and just so all the nice Christians know: Not once did I call out to Jesus, pray to the Virgin Mary, toy with my Rosary beads, or ponder my many sins to understand why this was happening to me. I did send out a thank-you to the guys at Niagara-Mohawk for getting the power back on.]

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By the way, for all of you thinking of charitable donations to benefit the various Irene-impacted residents of the U.S. and the Caribbean, there’s an FBI-related site — the Internet Crime Complaint Center — with some tips to make sure your donations go to real charities, and not frauds.